Tool Box Talks

Our Pipe Mill has been conducting hour long toolbox talks on a monthly basis for 30 years. In two weeks the plan is to eliminate these talks in favor of a 5 min. TailGate talk at the beginning of each shift. My thought is that this TailGate talk would be a great addition to our long established program, but not a replacement. I suspect the purpose behind this change is simply to improve production. As the Union Safety Rep. / Co-chair I will be addressing this with management. Any assistance or input from my safety friends would be valuable to me.

Replies to This Discussion

30 years is quite a track record! It may be difficult to cover the material in 5 minutes, here is one suggestion you can propose. We did 15 minute tool box chats once a week at one of my earlier companies several years ago, and it worked quite well. It was short enough to keep everyone's interest, but long enough to cover the basic points (we generally had one theme/subject for the month).

I'm not familiar w/your situation and this may not work for the items that you cover. One other thought is if they hold you to the 5 minutes, you may wish to create a (one page?) handout to pass out to everyone with your notes on it. This would allow you to provide a summary of what you covered as well as some additional information.

Our crews conduct a tailgate meeting when they are completing their risk assessment every morning, it takes about 5 mins. but I also conduct a health and safety meeting with each of our 5 divisions weekly, they take about 20 min. depending on the topic. Tailgate meetings in my mind are great for discussing the tasks/hazards/controls/production for the day, but are not long enough to provide discussions on safe work practices, incidents/near misses, training etc.. I would think that the Union Safety rep. would agree. If you want to talk about an H2S code of practice or something similar 5 mins. in the morning is just not long enough.

As long as you are maintaining the initial training and the annual trainings that OSHA requires, a 5 minute pre=shift toolbox talk is fine. I have some great resources if you want to e-mail me off-line and I will happily share some of what I have with you.

We also conduct daily pre-shift tool box talks. We try to keep them to about 5 minutes. The idea here is to cover a topic and get everyone thinking about safety at the beginning of their shift. We still have the longer training sessions as most compliance type of training needs more time and, for us anyway, should be more formal.

I would look at this as a positive change. The math does not add up for it to only be to increse production. More time will be used in short daily talks than in a once a month hour long meeting. I'll let you do the math.

I don't agree. There is production inefficiencies during shift change. They are simply trying to insert toolbox into this time frame, there by freeing up productive time while being legally compliant. No concern what-so-ever on being effective.

5 minute tool box talk! YOU CAN AGAIN REDUCE TO 5 SECOND SO IT WILL HELP FOR MORE PRODUCTION AND REDUCTION IN LIFE OF WORK FORCE .

Dear friend, why you peoples reduce the TBT time to 5 minute? For improving the production! Do you think 5 minute will help the work force to understand the safety requirements and make them safety conscious? NO .This will effect the moral of work force they will take it only a drama just for legal satisfaction.

Think just about a fatal accident consequences due to unsafe practices or negligence .It will affect the organization ,they will loss money in the form of compensation ,time loss, loss of reputation .loss of employee moral, maintenance charge for damaged equipments ,PENALTIES ,prosecution etc.. hmmm {IF YOU HAVE A TRAILER FULL OF MONEY THIS IS SO SILLY MATTER}

SAFETY measures will never put any organization in loss but accidents and mishaps DO!

So my suggestion is the old method ;not the new one which will favors only production not the safety of work force

OVERVIEWTake control of your time...and get control of your entire work day!The speed of everything has changed. Are your time management skills up to the challenge?Do you put off more today than you can ever accomplish tomorrow...exhaust yourself by 4:00 p.m. with only a fraction of your work done...see…See More

Training is the foundation to producing products and services that meet regulatory and quality expectations and industrywide acceptance. This is generally true for all products and services, but in particular, for medical devices. Why? Medical devices are not in the same league as any other ordinary product that can be handled by anyone in any manner.Training is the only means by which medical device companies that manufacture medical devices and the staff that handle these products on a daily…See More

5, 2013Now let’s imagine that you have managed to convince the CEO of the business to invest time and money in developing and implementing a new safety management system. You have trained everyone…Continue

Invitation to apply for ISQEM Director This is your chance to raise you own professional profile in the HSQE industry by becoming a Director of ISQEM, and help increase our membership worldwide. If…Continue

Our Pipe Mill has been conducting hour long toolbox talks on a monthly basis for 30 years. In two weeks the plan is to eliminate these talks in favor of a 5 min. TailGate talk at the beginning of…Continue